Unraveled (Woodlands) (27 page)

Hunger woke us up a couple of hours later. Sam was still sleepy when I climbed out of bed and went down to scramble some eggs. The full extent of my skill in the kitchen was making omelets and sandwiches, but if she thought I was shit hot in the kitchen, then I wasn’t going to correct her. The microwave was my bitch, though, and I could dial for delivery as good as anyone. But I’d take fucking cooking classes if it meant keeping her with me.

She stumbled down the stairs dressed in my T-shirt and looking so fine I wanted to carry her back up and make use of my second condom.
Fuel first, fuck second
.

“Where’s your permanent duty station?” she asked between forkfuls of eggs, which she declared delicious. She must be in love because they weren’t anything to write home about.

“Right now my duty station is Pendleton, but I think I might still have to do a two year unaccompanied in Okinawa.” The eggs tasted like sawdust as I thought about being away from Sam for two years. There would be almost no way for me to come home for more than a few weeks during that two-year period. “Good thing we have Skype, right?”

Sam didn’t answer, just stirred her eggs around her plate. Then she took a deep breath. “I’ve always wanted to travel.”

“You have?” If an unmarried Marine went overseas, he usually went alone because few partners could take a couple years off and afford to live wherever he went but it wasn’t unheard of. Some lucky bastards had girlfriends who would move over and teach English or other shit. I held my breath.

“Yup. I don't have any debt. I've got the death benefit, and Will's life insurance. His dad bought it and half went to me and the other half is Tucker's. I could rent out the condo. I’ve always wanted to learn about other countries’ fiber arts history. You know, needles were invented in China.”

“What if it didn't work out?”

She took another bite of her eggs and chewed. “Well if I still had places to visit I would do that, and then I'd decide what to do. Maybe I'd continue to travel to New Zealand to get my hands on their Merino wool. Merino is some of the softest wool yarn around. Then maybe I’d come back here and sell my baby stuff at craft fairs or online. Set up an Etsy shop.”

“You wouldn't regret it? Like not going to college and shit like that?” My heart was beating faster than a rabbit’s. Any faster and I might have a heart attack. It never occurred to me that Sam would move with me. That she would give up her home and family and college dreams and move across the country or even across the world to be with me. I hadn’t ever had anyone say that they would make that kind of commitment—not even Carrie. My throat closed up and I had a hard time swallowing my eggs.

“No. Not for a minute.” She gave me a sad smile, and I knew instantly she was thinking of Will. But this time it didn’t bother me one bit. “I don't ever want to stay home again. Be left behind. That's what I regret. If I went and the relationship failed, I’d enjoy the experience and the new friends I'd made. I can always come home.”

I set down my fork then and picked her up. “I’m going to take you upstairs now and we’re going to fuck—no, we’re going to make love so hard neither of us will be able to walk tomorrow.”

Sam patted my chest. “You talk a good game.”

“Don’t challenge me, baby, or you’ll be too sore to walk for a week.”

“Can’t wait,” she whispered and then bit my ear.

L
ATER
I
GOT
A
TEXT
TO
go over to Bo’s place.

“You want to go?”

“No, I’m too tired.” She moved her legs experimentally and then groaned. “And sore.”

I tried not to look too pleased about that. We’d used all three condoms and then I wished we had another one but since we didn’t, we pleasured each other orally. Best sixty-nine ever. I took
a lot
of mental pictures of her ass in my face as I ate her out and fingered her to a couple of orgasms. I’d be pulling those out regular when I was away from her. I wondered what I’d be able to convince her to show me on Skype. God, the dirty stuff we could do was getting me worked up again.

“No, no, no.” She held off a warding hand as I found myself leaning down toward her. “I’m done in for at least another twelve hours. Let my girl parts revive.”

“All right,” I said reluctantly. “I haven’t seen the boys in a couple of days so I’ll go have some beers while you recover.”

“Fine.”

I tucked her under the covers and gave her a deep kiss before heading off to The Woodlands.

T
HE
FARTHER
AWAY
FROM
S
AM
I got, the easier it was for second thoughts to creep in. Years of having sex with women I didn't care about had left me unprepared for the emotional wave of fulfillment, the complete sense of belonging. The rightness of it all. Oh and the motherfucking fear of loss. This time my heart was pounding, not out of excitement, but of fucking fear. Just what had I agreed to back there in Sam’s condo?

I was totally not in the mood to see one Ethan Drake at Bo’s place.

“What the hell is Drake doing here?” I muttered to Bo as I stomped in the house.

He rolled his eyes. “Chasing down Noah, I guess.”

Ethan Drake barely made it through boot and got kicked out in his third year, dishonorably discharged because he was snorting his measly enlisted paycheck up his nose.

Worse, Drake was a dog. He fucked anything in his path and didn’t hesitate to offer a shoulder to a deployed Marine’s girlfriend. But women seemed to be blind to his smarmy ways. I’d once seen him come out of a bar’s bathroom with a girl he’d obviously just screwed. She actually fucking giggled when he said he was just doing his patriotic duty by seeing to her needs. I almost tossed my cookies right there, and the fact that she didn’t made me wonder about whether she’d been snorting coke along with him.

But as Noah, Bo, and I stood with our arms crossed, glaring at his head, the girls nearly fought each other about who was going to bring his next beer.

“All the way from California, you drove?” Grace asked in wonder.

“Yes, ma’am. Couldn’t wait to see Jackson again.”

“That’s so sweet, isn’t it, honey?” She glanced toward Noah but didn’t really see him because if she had, she would have seen her man looking like he was going to either barf or hit Drake, possibly both.

“I can’t watch this shit,” I muttered to Bo. Grabbing a few beers from the refrigerator, I headed to the patio. About ten minutes later, Bo came out with a bottle of whisky and two glasses.

"Why're you drinking alone in the dark?" he asked. I contemplated the bottom of my nearly empty bottle, debating whether I should say anything. What the hell, though, if you couldn't talk to your brothers, who could you talk to?

"Sam almost died today?"

"Out of fear from her first jump?" He cackled.

"I wish. Her chute wouldn't open."

"What the fuck? Over at SkyHopper?" Bo sobered up quick and looked properly outraged.

I nodded and took one of the glasses. “Fill her up." Bo poured me three fingers. "Don't be stingy."

He filled me up.

"I've jumped there before. What happened?"

"Faulty equipment. I pulled the chute cord when we landed and it didn't open. Pulled the emergency cord, and it came off in my hand." I clenched my hand again, wishing I'd decked the SkyHopper guy.

"Mother fucker," Bo cursed.

"That's putting it mildly."

"You fix that?"

"One of the other folks there was a state trooper. He filed a complaint and said it’d be shut down within the hour."

"So that why you're drinking in the dark by your lonesome?"

I wish. "I was terrified today. Actually terrified. Like if I was the type to shit in my pants, I would've been soiled by the time I hit the ground." I leaned my elbows on my knees and stared out at the dark water of the pool, now almost black without the underground lights turned on. I was afraid to close my eyes because I feared I'd see Sam sprawled on the ground with her head split open like a melon. "I don't think I've come so close to touching mortality. Even over in the desert, I figured we could all take care of ourselves. But this time..." I trailed off. I remembered that first night I saw Sam and how my heart had stopped beating for a moment. This time my heart had stopped for enough counts for me to be pronounced dead.

"Life is short and precious?"

"Something like that. What am I doing with this girl, Bo? I'm here on leave to have a good time and now I'm fucking around with a widow. She says…” I paused. Did I want to tell Bo?
Why not,
I thought. “She says she’ll follow me, come with me wherever I’m deployed.”

“And you can’t wait to shake her off?”

“No, that’s the weird thing. It felt good.”

"And that terrifies you?”

"Yeah, still shitting in my pants terrified."

"Good thing you aren't the type to soil yourself."

"No kidding." I sighed and drained half the glass.

"You may want to slow down there."

"No, I don't think so. If anything I'm drinking too slow."

"Alcohol isn't going to change the way you feel."

"Can I find clarity in my drunkenness? Because I need some answers. I've only got, what?” I held up my fingers and tried to count. “Ten days to figure out what I should do. Ten days left with Sam? I swore I wasn't ever going to get involved while I was in the Corps."

"Twenty years of solitude seems like a pretty big reach. Don't know any FWBs that work out that long."

"So instead I get married, cheat, get divorced. Get remarried. Rinse and repeat?"

"Not everyone is like that."

"Name one relationship that has survived boot, deployment, or constant movement around the world."

"The statistic is like sixty-five percent or something that fail, so one out of three succeed, buddy."

I snorted. "Those are great odds. You betting on those odds?"

"You don't know that Sam is a cheater. She married an Army guy."

"I don't know that she's
not
a cheater. Maybe if I had a way to test her. Try her out." There was some thought forming at the back of my mind. I tried to reach for it, draw it forward so I could examine it.

"Whoa, I don't know if I like the sound of this." Bo took my now-empty glass and moved it away from me but I didn't care. I didn't need the alcohol now. I was on to something. "You might want to stop that thought train right there."

"No, this is actually a great idea. Maybe one of you can hit on her. Or no, she knows you guys. We need a stranger." The idea was taking shape and form and seemed brilliant.

"This idea is alcohol fueled. No good comes from alcohol-fueled ideas." Bo cautioned. What did he know? Like he said, he never let AnnMarie more than two steps from his side. That wasn't an option for me.

"It's like boot camp. BC for couples. For relationships. If it could weather a hard test, then we could make it." I tried to explain it to Bo but clearly he'd drunk too much because he wasn't getting how amazing this plan was.

"Don't test her. You'll lose her."

"That's the whole point, Bo." I tried to make him see the sense of it. "If testing her makes her do a runner, she's not good for the long haul anyway."

Bo rubbed a hand over his head. He'd allowed his hair to grow long since he'd separated. "I don't think I can talk any sense into you tonight but trust me when I say that this is the worst idea in a box of bad ideas."

“I’ll do it.” A voice came from the left. Ethan fucking Drake. Had he been listening to our conversation the whole time? As I peered up at him in my drunken fog, taking in his black hair that swooped down over his eyes, I was struck with the clarity I told Bo I’d been searching for in the bottom of the liquor bottle. There were always going to be guys like Ethan Drake out there sniffing around someone’s girl. And some girls who were lonely and lacked confidence or backbone were going to fall for his line. And the rest weren’t. I could live the rest of my life alone because I was too afraid to take a chance, or I could borrow a leaf from Sam’s book and just hang it all out there.

She’d loved and lost and no matter how she said that she never compared losses, losing her husband had to be a helluva a lot harder than getting cheated on. Yet, she allowed me inside her life, her body, her
heart
. She told me she loved me without any certainty about my response. She was out there living and I was cowering the dark like a five-year-old convinced there were monsters in my closet.

“Nah, no need, man,” I stood up, swaying a little at the alcohol rush. “I got this. Bo is right. Sam’s a keeper. She doesn’t need any test.”

I left them both behind. I wished Sam were here with me now. Inside, I sat down on the sofa in the living room and texted Sam.

Where RU?

LOL. You drunk, baby?

No, horny. Really horny.

She sent me a smiley face. I wondered what that meant.

Come over and hump me.

Still recovering but I’ll be ready for some morning action. Luv you, babe.